Hello from Provence, France

[Yiwu]

Hi all and fisrt of all Season's greetings !

I ran into this forum searching for more info on some Puers. I have been a heavy tea drinker for many years and this has gotten "worse" since I started travelling to Asia a couple times every year, including China.

I like many types of tea but my favorites are Oolongs, Tieh Kwan Yin, some Bi Luo Chun, Long Jing, and of course Pueh which I have grown gradually more found of in the past years, especially after a trip to Yunnan.

However, I find it quite difficult to get good information about pueh, especially when you do not read and speak Chinese. I remember getting really frustrated in Kunming when I realized there were wonderful books in Chinese about puer tea, but none in English. SO at the moment I have a feeling of sort of being in the middle of the river, having acquired quite some info about tea from travelling and reading (and drinking) but not knowing where to find the "knowledge" that I feel I am missing and how to acquire it (including such things as : how do I really know what is a good puer and a not so good one, how can I tell by looking at a cake wether it was artificailly aged, wheter it was kept in a very "wet" environment, how can i tell the grade of leaves, etc etc)

I went a couple times to Fangcun tea market in Guangzhou, spent hours and hours ( actually days !) there and felt somewhat "lost" , not knowing where to start

So I am hoping I'll find a lot of knowledge here that people will kindly accept to share with another tea-addict

And last, I'll hope you'll excuse my sometimes broken English, there was a time when I could speak and read better English but I have been praticing too little in the past years.....

[Victoria]

Your English is fine! Welcome to the board, nice to have you with us!

[Dreamer]

Welcome to the Teachat! Merry Christmas!

Dreamer

[Chip]

Welcome Yiwu to the forum. I am looking forward to seeing you around TeaChat!

[olivierco]

Bienvenue!